Register Now

In order to be able to post messages on the The Planted Tank Forum forums, you must first register.
Please enter your desired user name, your email address and other required details in the form below.

User Name:

Password

Please enter a password for your user account. Note that passwords are case-sensitive.

Password:

Confirm Password:

Email Address

Please enter a valid email address for yourself.

Email Address:

OR

Log-in

User Name

Password

Remember Me?

Human Verification

In order to verify that you are a human and not a spam bot, please enter the answer into the following box below based on the instructions contained in the graphic.

Additional Options

Miscellaneous Options

Automatically parse links in text

Automatically retrieve titles from external links

Topic Review (Newest First)

02-07-2013 10:13 PM

jared992

Carib Sea

Give the company a call and asked to talk to Jud McCracken. He knew exactly what I was talking about and took care of me..

02-07-2013 09:23 PM

jlieu

Floramax is NOT inert...at least not initially per Caribsea's customer service.

Had similar issues, no interest in help, just excuses...but here are two responses received.

Rick Greenfield (I assume this may be the President, Richard Greenfield)

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rick Greenfield

Sorry to hear about the trouble. How long has this aquarium been set up and what is the pH? Sometimes there is an initial and temporary elevation of pH with volcanic materials that burns off after a few weeks. Do you use R/O water? Rick

Tony Wagner, Director of Marketing, was my first contact...though he was pretty much useless. Asked for 'part numbers'.

And the story takes a turn... Read up on how to keep dwarf shrimp and inverts in general. Water conditions are paramount and pristine is the name of the game. In failing to do so, you are just wasting time, money and killing otherwise happy and healthy souls.

We all want to rush into setting up a tank and one may get away with accerating a cycle in larger tanks but hardly is the case for nanos

I am not sure where you are collecting that I rushed into the tank...The tank was fully cycled and with an appropriate amount of film built on everything. I fully understand the importance of water parameters, hence my other successful shrimp tank. My water out of my Ro/Di unit comes out at 6.2-6.3, but settles at around 6.6-6.7 after being exposed to air for awhile. It was merely the floramax substrate that messed with the tank parameters.

02-05-2013 07:29 AM

jared992

The tank was fully cycled. It had been running for over four months. I was not paying attention to the ph in that specific tank because I had always used water from my RO/DI system which gave me a good ph. When my shrimp started dying off in the tank withe the floramax substrate, I decided to check the ph and found it was through the roof. I then proceeded to isolate the variables by checking the substrate in a small container by itself. Within 30 seconds, the ph raised over 1 on ph scale. Haha,ammonia and nitrite levels were at 0 for those who think the tank was not cycled ( I am not that big of a dummy). I called Carib Sea and the manager of sales told me that a few bags had been contaminated from a seam of lime stone that ran above the quarry where they collect the midnight black Floramax material. In the end I got a refund and free bag of eco complete.

01-21-2013 07:51 AM

binbin9

Rob, I've had the issue with Eco complete too. This stuff is sooooo not inert. I've had to mix it with shrimp sand and even a bit of amazonia to bring it to more the level I wanted it.

01-21-2013 07:50 AM

binbin9

koro, I live in kent and my tap comes out about 7.4 but it's definitely soft. 6.8 out of the tap save you a heck of a lot of money!

01-21-2013 06:38 AM

Koro-chan

I live in Federal way and we are apart of the King county municipal water system. My tap measures at 6.8 ph, 1 kh, 2gh. My tank is a consistent 6.6 ph from CO2 and bog wood. My CRS are very happy.

Guys, it seems like everyone is jumping all over this guy. Nowhere did he say he that he JUST started this tank, he just said that when he started it, it was started with this substrate.
Check out the link above, I think he thought we would remember that he was talking about this thread, I did.
It does say that the tank was fully cycled.

i missed that whole thread...

i haven't seen the temp mentioned....does anyone what the tank temp is?

Guys, it seems like everyone is jumping all over this guy. Nowhere did he say he that he JUST started this tank, he just said that when he started it, it was started with this substrate.
Check out the link above, I think he thought we would remember that he was talking about this thread, I did.
It does say that the tank was fully cycled.

I did not add the substrate to an established tank. I started the tank with the substrate. My PH out of the tap is 6.3.

And the story takes a turn... Read up on how to keep dwarf shrimp and inverts in general. Water conditions are paramount and pristine is the name of the game. In failing to do so, you are just wasting time, money and killing otherwise happy and healthy souls.

We all want to rush into setting up a tank and one may get away with accerating a cycle in larger tanks but hardly is the case for nanos

01-17-2013 10:31 AM

Rob in Puyallup

Crappy water here in Puyallup, too. Forced to use distilled for all of my tanks.

Sent from my Samsung Galaxy S III using Tapatalk 2

01-17-2013 07:52 AM

Kehy

In Ellensburg (eastern side of the state) the pH out of my tap is about 7.6 and I've seen it go about 8.0...can we trade water?

01-17-2013 06:56 AM

Mrturritos

Wow I think I know this guy or at least I heard about him from a co-worker. Poor guy came into the store to get a refund on the substrate. I tested my ph that has black flora max (2.5 gallon) and ph is 7.0 while the CRS tank is 6.8 being buffered down by bog wood and leafs.

He, I imagine lives close by and probably has similar tap water. The Ph this time of year goes up so if you haven't done a reset ph test of aged tap water might want to do that and then compare. Most people around western washington have either acidic or neutral water, but I have seen a few cases of people who live up north of seattle (rarely south) have very high 8.0ph depending on the time of year.

01-17-2013 04:05 AM

ravensgate

Yes, if that tank wasn't cycled, not only would ammonia kill them but nitrites and nitrates as well could have had a part in it. Aquatic delight is right, we need more info as to what happened.

So you started the tank and added shrimp to it immediately? you didn't let the tank cycle? If that's the case, yes, pH will bounce sometimes drastically during the cycle and yes, it can kill your shrimp. You need to let the tank cycle and get established first before adding livestock. 2-6 weeks typically.

if the tank hadn't cycled yet and you added shrimp ammonia could have killed them as well.

please tell us a little about your tank so that we can attempt figure out what happened (GH,KH,PH,Ammonia, Nitrate, Nitrite)

This thread has more than 15 replies.
Click here to review the whole thread.